You say that - but that entirely discounts how much energy is being converted to a weaponized format - even unto late game, none of the projected energy weapons soak more than a hundred or two megawatts of power draw. Compared to the dozens (some back of the napkin math shows that some of these ship...

Taking inspiration from classic sci-fi, an illegal modification to your ship's interior which shunts the exhaust plume from behind... to in front. And as Jon's Law tells us... "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction. It only matters how long you want to wait for maximum damage."...